There is an urban legend that Google Calendar Sync would not run on Windows 7. Indeed, if you follow the installation instructions Google Calendar Sync will first ask you for your credentials and consequently fail to connect to Google Calendar. In the following you’ll find an solution how to use Google Calendar Sync with Microsoft Outlook 2007 on a Windows 7 system that that is provided under a works on my machine premise.

Once saved, Google Calendar Sync will try to connect but fail with error 2006. There is not many information about this error beside various frustrated users ranting about this and some statements that the current version of Google Calendar Sync (0.9.3.5) is not supported under Windows 7 yet.

In the current case we will even run Google Calendar Sync on a Windows 7 64-bit system. Before you continue, make sure you exit Google Calendar Sync. First of all open a Explorer window and navigate to C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Google Calendar Sync or C:\Program Files\Google\Google Calendar Sync on a 32-bit Windows 7 system.

Right click on GoogleCalendarSync.exe and select Properties. Now select the Compatibility tab, check the Run this program in compatibility mode for and choose Windows Vista (Service Pack 2) from the drop down list. Click on OK and restart Google Calendar Sync either from your desktop icon or from the start menu entry.

Once restarted you can happily sync Google Calendar with Microsoft Outlook 2007 on (even a 64-bit) Windows 7 system.

The Compatibility mode of Windows is a great feature to make usage of legacy programs that have not been or will never bee updated to the latest Windows version. Since Windows 7 even mode modes (including Windows Server) back to Windows 95 are supported. The number of supported versions might vary depending on the Windows 7 version you use, however, the Vista and XP mode should always be available.

Microsoft’s Windows 7, Outlook 2007 and Adobe’s Acrobat just do not play well together on 64-bit systems. After receiving a PDF document via email, Outlook usually cannot display the PDF.

When selection Preview File, you will simply get the message PDF Preview Handler for Vista (Vista!?) caused an error.

For now, the only way to view the PDF file is to open it in an external PDF reader. Leo Davidson provides a fix that finally solves this issue. Just get the fix, and run the Adobe Reader preview handler x64 fixer.exe which is included in the file.

After applying the fix, both, the 32-bit AppID as well as the 64-bit AppID will show the value as correct.

No reboot required, just go back to Outlook (worked even without restarting the application) and et voilà.

Thanks to Leo Davidson, who provides this outstanding fix. Well played.

One major drawback of ReSharper 4.5 was the fact that when navigating to a compiled class, ReSharper always opened the Visual Studio Object Bowser. However, personally I prefer the Metadata View of Visual Studio:

With Version 5.0 ReSharper (currently available as EAP) there comes a major improvement. The first time you navigate to a pre-compiled class, ReSharper offers you to choose your favorite view: Object Browser, Metada View or directly the .NET framework sources.

In case your change your mind (or the selected sources is not available) you can define the order for the code navigation within Visual Studio at the ReSharper Options from ReSharper / Options… / Tools / External sources:

AWStats is a free, Perl-based analyzer for log files. To get results quickly on a Windows Server 2008 with IIS 7 you only have to follow a few steps. These are not well documented in the AWStats documentation and require some time of research. This post will show you how to set up AWStats with IIS7 in only a few minutes.

1. Install Perl, e.g. ActivePerl. There are 32-bit and 64-bit versions available. Make sure that Perl is added to your PATH environmental variable. The ActivePerl installer usually provides this option during the installation.
   
   
2. Install AWStats. Remember the path AWStats is installed. Paths used below are based on the installation folder of AWStats. In this example we use c:\awstats.
   
   
3. Run the configuration script at c:\awstats\tools\awstats_configration.pl. Follow the on screen instructions. This will create a default configuration file in c:\awstats\wwwroot\cgi-bin e.g. called awstats.www.example.org.config. The site name www.example.org depends on whatever site name was provided while running the script. When asked for the Apache Web server path type in none.
   
   
   
4. Open the configuration file awstats.www.example.org.config with any text editor of your choice.
   
   
5. AWStats already supports IIS, however, it is required to tweak the config file. First change the entry for LogFile. Log files for IIS might be found at c:\inetpub\logs\LogFiles\W3SVCNNN where NNN is a different number for each web site, IIS creates log files for. Change the entry to
   
   LogFile=”c:\awstats\tools\logresolvemerge.pl c:\inetpub\logs\LogFiles\W3SVC1\*.log |”
   
   This will merge all log files for a site provided by IIS. Adjust the paths corresponding to your installations and desired log file folders.
   
   
6. The AWStats configuration file offers the possibility to set the LogFormat to IIS (LogFormat=2), however, the log entries provided by a standard installation of IIS 7 won’t match. The AWStats documentation recommends to change the settings of IIS. The change will take effect only after restarting the Web site and is only valid for entries after that particular moment. Consequently, this is not an option if you are going to analyze the logs of the last 12 months where the original settings were used. To make AWStats work with the standard log format of IIS 7 change the LogFormat  to
   
   LogFormat=”%time2 %other %method %url %other %query %other %host %other %code % %other %other %bytesd”
   
   
7. Change SiteDomain and HostAliases to meet the settings of your site.
   
   
8. Change to c:\awstats\wwwroot\cgi-bin\ and run
   
   awstats.pl -config=www.example.org
   
   This will build the statistics database for AWStats.
   
   
9. To create output run
   
   awstats.pl -config=www.example.org –output –staticlinks > …\example_org_stats.html
   
   
10. Not that example_org_stats.html is created one folder up. In case you do miss this, the output will not work correctly until you adapt the entries for DirCgi and DirIcons in the configuration file.
    
    
11. The output file is now located in c:\awstats\wwwroot. You might want to create a Virtual Directory or set up a Web site to view the reports via the Web or your Intranet.
    
    

Repeat steps 3-7 fore each site you want to create reports for. Repeat step 8 and 9 every time you want to create a new report.

Not really a productivity tool, but apparently some tool that makes working all day long on the screen much more convenient.

“f.lux makes your computer screen look like the room you're in, all the time. When the sun sets, it makes your computer look like your indoor lights. In the morning, it makes things look like sunlight again”

f.lux adjusts the color temperature of your display to the time of the day. It ranges from 6500 Kelvin during daylight to 3400 Kelvin during the night. Give it a try, downloads are available for Windows XP/Vista, Mac OS X and Linux (glibc6).

ZoomIt (by nobody else than Mark Russinovich), a classic tool for presenting. Quite lightweight with few but good options. The zoom capability allows you to zoom into the area of the screen where the mouse points to. The draw and type capability allows to draw and type on your screen. Way cool if you are using a Tablet PC, though. Finally, the Break function is a countdown. Nice for speakers this one comes with a few nifty functions such as playing a sound and displaying a custom background image.

And no, it’s not a tool only for evangelists giving talks in large lecture theaters. It also comes quite handy in meetings and presentations within the team and in front of customers.

For a while, I am working on a project where I use WPF to its limits. Unfortunately, Visual Studio has its limitations in rendering the stuff we do here.

We started with Visual Studio 2005, without any native support for XAML in Visual Studio doing a lot of the work in Notepad2, using one CTP after another including Visual Studio 2008 Beta 2 up to the final version of Visual Studio 2008. Things became better over time, however, I wished simply to switch off the Design view in in Visual Studio.

Hidden in the Visual Studio settings, there is this switch A hidden jewel for anybody working a lot with the WPF markup language in Visual Studio.

You’ll find it at: Tools / Options… / Text Editor / XAML / Miscellaneous

Another nice feature, unrevealed in Internet Explorer 7: Adding your own search providers is quite easy. When you select the drop down menu at your search box, you can select your currently installed search providers.

To add more, select Find More Providers… from the menu.

Now, go to your favorite search engine and perform a search for TEST. I did this for the Beolingus translation provider. Paste the URL from the previous source and specify a name for your new search provider.

That’s the XML used for the installation. Press install and can directly access this search provider using the search box in IE 7.

<OpenSearchDescription xmlns="http://a9.com/-/spec/opensearch/1.1/">
  <ShortName>Beolingus</ShortName> 
  <Description>Beolingus provider</Description> 
  <InputEncoding>UTF-8</InputEncoding> 
  <Url type="text/html" template="http://dict.tu-chemnitz.de/dings.cgi?lang=en&service=deen&opterrors=0&optpro=0&query={searchTerms}&iservice=&comment=" /> 
</OpenSearchDescription>

If you want to modify the settings later, you can do so using Tools / Internet Options / Change Search Defaults Settings.

It was the first time I played with these settings of Internet Explorer and I am quite surprised in a positive way about it.

In case you are using the HTC Touch Pro or DHTC Touch Diamond get your hands on the demo version of GScroll. Simply copy the .cab file to your device and start it from there. It runs for five minutes only, but this should be enough to convince you to get this tool.

It makes use of two of the built-in sensors of your HTC Touch Diamond/Pro to navigate in applications. The nice but less useful one to the Tap & Tilt functionality. Double-tab the center wheel and tilt the device to navigate within your applications. The more interesting one is the Swipe control.

By swiping your finger over the buttons you can navigate left/right and up/down. This becomes very handy e.g. using the photo and video collections. Using the touch screen there often causes the touch screen to recognize the swiping as a tap, opening the photo. Also navigating within Windows folders becomes quite comfortable.

A further feature is to assign the buttons to additional programs. However, this means not by pressing the button. It means by tipping the buttons. Once, I received the device I was quite frustrated to have only limited buttons on the device, compared to my previous devices.

How does it work: The device has not only the resistive touchscreen, the button panel is also a capacitive sensor which causes in fact that the navigation wheel works.

With a price of $4.99, there is no reason to support those guys in buying a copy.

Link: http://www.mobilesrc.com/GScroll.aspx

The Creative Commons Add-in for Microsoft Office 2007 allows you to embed Creative Commons licenses directly into PowerPoint, Word as well as Excel.

"This add-in enables you to embed a Creative Commons license into a document that you create using Microsoft Office Word, Microsoft Office PowerPoint, or Microsoft Office Excel. With a Creative Commons license, authors can express their intentions regarding how their works may be used by others.  The add-in downloads the Creative Commons license you designate from the Creative Commons Web site and inserts it directly into your creative work."

Once installed, you'll find a new tab at your ribbon called Creative Commons. The License button allows you to create a new license for the document.

For me it was always a pain to browse through the CC licenses to find the appropriate one. The add-in allows you to step through all options:

Finally, you select the license and assign it to the document. Visuals will be added automatically by the add-in and the license is then downloaded fro the CC web site.

Quite nice add-in that gives you some boost in productivity, especially when you deal often with Word and PowerPoint documents you hand out to the public.

Download: Microsoft Download Center

This evening, I moved my thesis documents and all it's dependencies to a new machine. Using Windows Vista, most documents are located in %UserProfile%. Most of them, but not all. EndNote X stores its styles in its program folder by default. The styles are located in %ProgramFiles (x86)%\EndNote X\Styles (on my X64 system). To change this, go to Edit / Preferences... / Folder Locations and change the Style Folder option.

It's a simple tweak, however, it allows you to manage and backup your own styles in a much more efficient way.

This morning I was pleasantly surprised, by this message box! Especially #1 was quite annoying. Using multiple machines for development I am using the Delicious add-on to share my bookmarks among the different computers.

In detail we got the following fixes:

1) Fixes problem where bookmarks are sometimes not saved in the user's Delicious account.
2) Fixes problem with bookmarks not working from long toolbar menus.
3) Edit bookmark dialog now extends vertically to show all users from your Network.
4) Improvements to tag suggestion functionality when saving bookmarks.

Source: http://delicious.com/help/tools

It's quite annoying to keep the Blogroll on your weblog up-to-date while using offline readers. Using RSSBandit and dasBlog">dasBlog brings a quite handy solution to you. First of all, open your dasBlog configuration and check the 'Enable Config Web Service' option.

Now open the 'Options' dialog of RSSBadit and select the 'Remote Storage' pane. Here check 'Use remote storage', select 'dasBlog' from the drop-down list and fill out the required login credentials. Your API usually is located at something like http://YouBlog/ConfigEditingService.asmx'. 

To sync, simply select the 'Upload Feeds...' or 'Download Feeds...' command from the tools menu.

No idea, why I haven't seen this, yet. But this option finally allows my keep my online Blogroll up-to-date with a few mouse clicks.

Today, I tried it the first time...

"Google Chrome is a browser that combines a minimal design with sophisticated technology to make the web faster, safer, and easier."

It looks very lightweight, though. Reminds me to the early beginnings of Netscape and Internet Explorer. It gives you the impression that it's quite fast. However, during rendering it looks a bit like Safari.

For some pages that look quite nice in Firefox and Internet Explorer, rendering also behaves a bit odd. So, is this one more browser we have to test our Web application against?

One feature provided is the creation of application shortcuts on your desktop that will open the Web site in its own, plain window. Very nice but failed several times when I tried. not sure if it's worth switching from Firefox or Internet Explorer.

Source: http://www.google.com/chrome

Dana Coffey created a list of 25 tools you might also helpful. Nice list, though.

"With traveling and use of many different computers, many geeks (and geek girls) often find a need to have a uniform set of tools handy wherever we may be. I've put together a list of 25 invaluable portable apps that can be installed on an Ipod or Thumb Drive. These are really cool!"

Amer Gerzic created a great plug-in to format source code while writing a post in Windows  Live Writer.

You simply paste the code into the plug-in Window, specify the appearance of the code snippet.

He supports a wide range of languages within this plug-in which makes it so interesting. Currently supported languages are ASPX, C, C#, C++, COBOL, Cold Fusion, CSS, Eiffel, Fortran, Haskell, Java, JavaScript, JScript, Mercury, MSIL, Pascal, Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby, SQL, Visual Basic, Visual Basic Script, XML.

Simple but powerful: http://live.sysinternals.com. 

What they say:

"This is a file share allowing access to all Sysinternals utilities. We have developed this to test an alternate distribution mechanism for our utilities. This will allow you to run these tools from any computer connected to the Internet without having to navigate to a webpage, download and extract the zip file."

What you get:

Have you realized? del.icio.us got a new URI: http://delicious.com  - somewhat easier to type, isn't it. Johannes pointed out the new toolbar for Internet Explorer which is quite an improvement to the previously offered buttons.

Since I use multiple machines for development at work and university but also at home, delicious became one of my favorite tools for managing bookmarks. The best feature coming with the new toolbar is definitely the complete integration into the browser. By selecting one of the bookmarks you can directly change it's properties without browsing to the delicious site.

Source: http://delicious.com/help/tools

Since running my own mail server I am bombed with SPAM. With the newly released Mercury/32 v4.61 I also decided to install SpamHalter. If you have never worked with this before, you might be as lost as I was in the beginning. So, here  a few tips to get started easily.

After installing the latest Mercury/32, the setup will probably ask you to install SpamHalter among other plug-ins. To get it running quickly, get the words4.zip file from the SpamHalter web site. Start the SpamHalterTools.exe from the Mercury directory and import the database.

At first you have to enable the '+' forms within Mercury. You'll find this option at the 'Advanced' tab at the 'Mercury Core Module Configuration'.

Now, you define two local mailboxes for SPAM and NOSPAM corrections:

The correction mailboxes must be specified within the SpamHalter settings on the 'Basic Setting' tab.

I actually was not sure, so I created also the corresponding aliases for those two mailboxes: Maybe this might work without, but since I am running this mail server for multiple DNS entries, I wanted to be sure.

If SPAM is detected by SpamHalter, you'll get the corresponding header information that can be evaluated, e.g. using Rules within Microsoft Outlook.

The mailboxes you've created before are used to correct false positives or missed SPAM. Some accidentally as SPAM classified mail can just be forwarded to the NOSPAM mailbox created before to teach the system about this mail. Not recognized SPAM mails are sent to the SPAM mailbox to get processed. Simply add the password you have chosen before to enable the remote

Following these steps you get a quite reliable system within a few minutes. After sending couple of SPAM mails to the system it already started to recognize German SPAM.

There is much more to tweak on the system, but this should be enough to get a fast satart with SpamHalter. To get a more detailed instruction read the original documentation [pdf] and the web page.

I am currently asked a lot what tools I usually use on my machine. Finally, I thought of starting making an regular inventory on my software base. I'll try to update this list somewhat regular. Also this post will be simply accessible via http://www.aheil.de/software/ from the whole Web site.

Research

EndNote - currently I run Endnote X, however, meanwhile there is Endnote X2 available. There have been various issues getting the version working with Word 2007. Since it works I haven't upgraded.

PersonalBrain - which is a mind mapping tool. In contrast to MindMap it provides some dynamic flow of information. Once you got used to it, you maybe don't want to miss it again. The Core Edition I run does not provide Outlook support and multiple attachments. But I am not sure if these two functions I miss are reason enough for spending 100 more bucks. Beside the price it's a great tool.

Coding

ReSharper - a valuable add-on providing a bunch of functionality you miss in Visual Studio. On-the-fly code analysis, extended highlighting, automated brackets and parenthesis are only a few things that come along with this plug-in.

Notepad2 - I am not sure, but I think this thing is not developed anymore. Provides highlighting for various programming languages including XML, starts rapidly and has a small footprint. 

TortoiseSVN - almost perfect user interface to Subversion, providing Explorer integration and context menus for direct access to Subversion commands.

Imaging

SnagIt - one of the coolest tools I have ever bought. They just upgraded to version 9 an I immediately got the update. Provides great screen capture functionality.

Microsoft Image Composer 1.5 - a long long time ago, this came with Microsoft FrontPage. I still provides me most of the imaging functionality I need during a day. Frankly spoken, it's the only imaging tool I can really work with. Photoshop or stuff like this is way too complex for me. And for a imaging tool it starts right away. 10 years old the footprint of this app is literally nothing.

Microsoft Digital Image Suite 10 - unfortunately, Microsoft has discontinued this product line as some of the features went into Windows Vista.

System Tools

Daemon Tools - somehow usually the first tool I install right away on a fresh system. Gives you everything you need when dealing with ISO images.

Acronis TrueImage Home - my weekly backup of my laptop. Furthermore this tool helped me already twice moving my current HDD to a new one. I still run version 10 that works perfectly with Windows Vista.

DU Meter - A small tool providing exhaustive network traffic overview with a great logging functionality. The new version 4.01 works even better under Windows Vista. Haven't seen anything better for 25 bucks (or 21 €). The new version also supports e-mail notification when a certain traffic limit is exceed.

Networking

Vistumber - a free monitoring UI for wireless networks under Windows Vista - as NetStumbler is not supported under Windows Vista at all.

TabletPC

InkSeine - while trying out some new concepts using digital ink, this app is great if you look for something to draw a quick sketch on  you TabletPC.

Blogging

Windows Live Writer - what can I say: THE offline blogging tool. I think I would even pay for this one a few bucks but it's for free.

Rss Bandit - More likely some kind of reverse blogging - reading blogs of others. I tried some tool in the beginning and stuck one day with Rss Bandit. Quite good but takes ages until it starts.

twhirl - a lightweight twitter client created with Adobe's Air. Rich functionality and the best twitter client I've tried so far - and I tried a lot of them.

Tools

Xobni - I usually don't like Outlook plug-ins, maybe because I don't Outlook that much. Anyway, with Xobni, Outlook got a 150% productivity boos. Outlook search is indeed slow -Xobni search is great and even runs if the Windows indexer is stopped. I like the attachment list of previous conversations and was recently pointed out on the statistics when people write to you. Why this is cool? Because when the have a peak at 2 p.m. writing emails, there is a high probability you might reach them also on the phone.

SmartFTP - that's the FTP tool you should use. I have never tried anything else. But the splash screen sucks when using the personal version that comes for free. Maybe I will spend the 37 bucks one day to get rid of this annoying dialog.

For a while now there is a new release of RSS Bandit out there. So, finally I did upgrade my installation. The nice thing about RSS Bandit is indeed its very nice integration with Windows Live Writer, del.icio.us, Twitter... any alternatives out there? Wondering what anybody else is using...

Being tired of typing http://dict.tu-chemnitz.de into my browser's address bar when looking for an English expression, I created a Beolingus De-En translation button for the Windows Live Toolbar.

I've submitted the button to the Windows Live Gallery, however the submission is still pending approval...

[Update 6/5/2008]

This morning, the submission was approved and can now be downloaded from here.

For some days it looks like there are some issues with the Akismet API. A couple of SPAM entries found their way into my blog not being monitored by the service at all. Now I decided to give ReverseDOS a try.

It's a small HttpModule developed by Michael K. Campbell. Let's see what he is going to say about ReverseDOS:

"ReverseDOS is a very simple HttpModule that checks various parts of incoming requests against a list of crap that you don't want pushed on to your site. If ReverseDOS detects a match, it attempts to stall the requesting client for a number of seconds (specified in a .config file). During this loop, which uses virtually no server resources - and only a tiny smidgen of bandwidth, ReverseDOS checks every .3 seconds to see if the client is still connected. If the spammer disconnects, good riddance. If the spammer sticks around, they're finally rewarded with the Response Headers - containing an HTTP 403 - Access Denied Response Code."

Does not sound too bad, does it? Since I run my own server now it is a cinch to get it run. Deployment is quite easy, copying the bits, the configuration file and adding one line to your Web.config. Following the installation instructions, it took a few minutes to get everything set up. So far, it looks like it runs fine with dasBlog 2.0. I'll give the default configuration file a try, before I see what to add there.

The careful observer realized that I am using Twitter for microblogging for a while. I tried a couple of tools such as Twadget for the Vista sidebar. I created also some Jabber account to post using the IM feature of Twitter. Jabber doesn't work for me since I can't connect to the server from within corporate network. The tool I finally ended up with is Twhirl. I haven't found any time to play with all the features. It is based on Adobe's ARI runs quite smooth and makes it a lot more fun to twitter. Only fact I am disappointed about is the footprint of almost 30 MB. Anyway, the tool is worth a look if you are using Twitter especially since it is also available for Mac OSX. Go and try it and follow me.

To keep updated I am just starting publishing my free/busy times to Office Online. First of all, register with Office Online, this shouldn't take that long if you have already a Windows Live account.

Open Outlook and chose the calendar you want to publish by right-clicking it in the task pane.

Now select 'Publish to Internet' and then 'Publish to Office Online...'. After doing some registration you can finally choose the options for publishing the calendar.

We are going to choose the granularity of details we want to publish. In my case I choose the  'Availability only' option.

Then I am going to allow everybody to see these availability times. If you are going to publish more details, you might want to consider to share your calendar only with invited users.

At the end I am going to check the 'Advanced Options'.

In this case I am fine with the automatic uploads. After confirming, the initial upload is performed. In the task pane you'll now find another icon for your calendar indicating that it is shared.

Finally, my free/busy times are now available.

After upgrading to the Windows Search 4.0 Preview I was quite happy about the new "index now" and "pause" functionality, finally provided by the preview. Brandon Paddock now came along with the missing tool to control the indexer.

Download, install and run. Works perfectly. No more locking down my system due to SearchIndexer.exe. 

Download Link: http://brandontools.com/files/folders/sidebar_gadgets/entry511.aspx

Looking around for some cross-post plug-in for a while, I came along this plug-in for Windows Live Writer. Nice idea, but it actually does not load in WLW.

Right now, it is the only plug-in I found so far. I filed the bug and now I am waiting for any response. If nothing happens I have to have a look myself. Thanks for putting it under Ms-PL. If anybody get this plug-in working, let me know.

"The Visual Linq query builder is a Visual Studio 2008 addin. It's a designer that helps you create Linq to Sql queries in your application. Both C# and VB projects are supported."

It was developed during an internship at Microsoft by Simon Ferquel and Johanna Piou.

Read more on here and get the bits from there.

Vista Flickr Uploader is a small tool I found at CodePlex to quickly push a whole bunch of pictures to your Flickr account.

Pros: Allows you to select a whole bunch of images at once, allows to assign the images to a previously created set and remembers the folder you picked pictures from the last time.

Cons: Takes some time to start since it validates the verifies application requirements every time, does not allow you to create title or description of the photos and finally the code is under LGLP - no way that I touch it.

Nice, but some room for improvements.

Nick White recently announced the Windows Search 4.0 Preview. The description of the Remote Index Discovery seems to be promising.

The first positive improvement after the installation I realized is a 'Pause' button at the 'Indexing options'. A tray icon, for convenient pausing the indexing, as I did know from the early versions of MSN Desktop Search or Microsoft Research's Stuff I've Seen, is not provided.

On the Windows Server 2003 installation, I find a tab at the 'Advanced Options' allowing me to add UNC locations. Since I had no Desktop Search running on my server before I am not sure if this is some new feature.

So far, I haven't found anything about the Remote Index Discovery, yet. However, I will follow up the development of the Desktop Search in the future.

Looks like it enables import and live preview of RAW files in Vista without any further third-party tool. Can be downloaded at [1].

[1] http://www.olympus.co.jp/...

Just because I use it more often than once and it is under the Ms-PL: XML Notepad is located here [1] and available for download here [2].

[1] http://www.codeplex.com/xmlnotepad/
[2] http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...

Being my favorite feed reader, RSS Bandit [1] seems to have a quite cool feature to share your feed list among multiple computers. Simply got to Tools / Options / Remote Storage and select dasBlog from the Protocol drop-down list.

dasBlog_7D2F/image3.png" atomicselection="true">dasBlog_7D2F/image_thumb3.png" width="320" border="0">

Therefore, you have to enable the Edit Web Service on your blog configuration.

dasBlog_7D2F/image9.png" width="320" border="0"> 

If did so, but actually nothing happened. The Edit Web Service URL seems to be right, activated and RSS Bandit does not provide any error message. Looks like some more digging is necessary...

[1] http://www.rssbandit.org/

Today, I installed the Social Bookmarking Tool for WLW by Rahul Soni. So I am just starting to add social bookmark links on my future blog entries. 

After installing the tool you have to restart Windows Live Writer. Then you'll see a additional option in the insert pane on the right side of WLW.

After publishing your entry, you have to copy the link as well as the title of your blog entry and insert it into the Social Bookmarking Tool dialog. That's all, just publish the tool again.

Source: Rahul Soni's blog

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Just another nice Twitter add-in, this time for Windows Live Messenger. After enabling the hidden Live Messenger Add-In API you can install Twessenger written by Kunal Kundaje. It updates your Windows Live Messenger status to your recent Twitter post. Nice work.

Source: http://kunal.kundaje.net/twessenger/

Twadget is a Widows Vista Sidebar Gadget written by Rod Begbie. It allows you to post to your Twitter account and read your subscriptions. Nice work.

Source: http://arsecandle.org/twadget/

Windows Live Writer is for sure the current highlight in blogging tools. The Windows Live Writer Gallery brings a whole bunch of extensions to Windows Live Writer which make it even better. Especially the digital ink and Visual Studio plug-ins look promising... pending for further investigation.

Source: http://gallery.live.com/default.aspx?pl=8

Synchronizing my laptop folders with three servers on different locations makes it difficult to keep track of what is already copied. SyncToy 1.4 should help me in getting this managed since I haven't used it on my new machine yet and my XP machine still running version 1.2.

Source: Download

Remote Desktop Connection Client for Mac [1] r0ckz. Listening music on the Mac mini, sometimes I had to do things on my server. Consequently, I had to start one of my machines to connect to to the server remotely. Using the Remote Desktop Connection Client that's a thing of the past. there are some c00l features, not seen on the Windows client, yet (maybe I should have a better look): Copy and paste seems to be working from and to the host system and you can print on your Mac printer while being in the remote session.

[1] http://www.microsoft.com/mac/otherproducts/otherproducts.aspx?pid=remotedesktopclient

A while ago Microsoft release the Consolas Font for Visual Studio 2005 [1]. I haven't thought [2] of it for a while until I set up my machine during the last days. There is a significatn difference while using the Consolas font (all characters the same width, optimized for ClearType and quite a bit smaller than the old typewriters). The pictures shows a direct comparison of both fonts...

[1] http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?...
[2] http://blog.aheil.de/ConsolasFontForVisualStudio2005.aspx

Just tripped over the Reflector Add-In Repository [1] on CodePlex. Very valuable add-ins for my favorite .NET tool [2].

[1] http://www.codeplex.com/reflectoraddins
[2] http://www.aisto.com/roeder/dotnet/

Coming back from Redmond I found the Visual Studio Update for Vista RTM [1] available.

[1] http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...

Windows Mobile Device Center 6 is available for download [1].

[1] http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/devicecenter.mspx

Some of of the advancements in Service Pack 1 for Visual Studio 2005 [1] which is available for download [2]:

• "New processor support (e.g., Core Duo) for code generation and profiling"
• "Performance and scale improvements in Team Foundation Server"
• "Team Foundation Server integration with Excel 2007 and Project 2007"
• "Tool support for occasionally connected devices and SQL Server Compact Edition"
• "Additional support for project file based Web applications"
• "Windows Embedded 6.0 platform and tools support"

Especially the Core Duo support sound quite nifty to me. However, running Vista you have to wait some more weeks for some additional features.

"For developers using Visual Studio 2005 on Windows Vista, Microsoft is in current development on an update to Service Pack 1 called the ‘Visual Studio 2005 SP1 Vista Refresh Beta’. This update builds on the improvements made in SP1 and delivers a first class experience for developers wanting to take advantages of the new features in Windows Vista. The Visual Studio 2005 SP1 Update for Windows Vista is expected to ship after the consumer availability of Windows Vista in Q1 of 2007 and is now available in bet"

Just in case you are wondering why the two service packs are separated you can find more over here [3].

[1] http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/support/vs2005sp1/default.aspx 
[2] http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...
[3] http://blogs.msdn.com/somasegar/archive/2006/09/26/772250.aspx

Looking for svnserve [1] I realized that the link is dead. Instead I found some hints that subversion from version 1.4 .x on supports to be started as a service out of the box. After running

sc create svn.local binpath= "\"c:\program files\subversion\bin\svnserve.exe\" --service --root c:\svn" displayname= "Subversion Repository" depend= Tcpip

I just had to change the service settings to be automatically started.

More information on this topic can be found at [2].

[1] http://blog.aheil.de/SVNService.aspx
[2] http://svn.collab.net/repos/svn/tags/1.4.0/notes/windows-service.txt

DSL-Tools v1 for Visual Studio 2005 are available.

"... Version 1 of Domain-Specific Language Tools lets you create a custom graphical designer that uses your own domain-specific diagrammatic notation. You can then create custom text templates that use models created in your designer to generate source code and other files. Domain-Specific Language Tools requires Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Professional Edition or above.  ..."

Thanks to Damir for his post [2]. Otherwise I would have missed it. Actually I was looking for exactly such a tool for my research.

[1] http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx...
[2] http://tomicic.de/DevelopmentDomainSpecificLanguage...

Additional lightweight XML editor [1]. Must have if you play a lot with XML files.

[1] http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=72d6aa49-787d-4118-ba5f-4f30fe913628&DisplayLang=en

Windows Vista comes with a whole bunch of new, high-color icons. How to create own icons for Vista applications is explained in the Vista Icon Creation Guidelines [1]. If I find some time I will purchase Axialis IconWorkshop [2]. The tutorial [3] for that tool look quite promising.

[1] http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/UxGuide/UXGuide/Resources/WhatsNewInVista/Icons.asp
[2] http://www.axialis.com/iconworkshop
[3] http://www.axialis.com/tutorials/tutorial-vistaicons.html

I quite like the possibility offered by Mac OS with the detection of network errors when the system cannot connect to the network. Microsoft now also offers such a tool as Hotfix (KB914440) [1]. 

"The Network Diagnostics for Windows XP tool analyzes information about your network connectivity to help you troubleshoot network-related problems with your computer."

After installing the tool, IE proposes to use the tool after a network error.

 The Network Diagnostic Tool is accessible by the  Tools / Diagnose Connection Problems ... menu.

Viewing the log file after the check allows to review the performed actions.

[1] http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=EA541E8E-85A3-4D2F-A3A4-B329D03FC2FA&displaylang=en

<a hint of sarcasm>Thank you for the German language reforms...</a hint of sarcasm> Again there is another hotfix for the German post-reform rules [1].

[1] http://support.microsoft.com/kb/923348/de

After getting a licence and re-installing the MAPILap NNTP [1] Outlook plug-in I was kind of frustrated that the plug-in did not work anymore. Basically I found the reason in the registry settings of the tool. There the account was still disabled since I have chosen this option during a test installation before [2].

Just delete the folder with the deactivated profile name. After the next start of Outlook the plug-in wizard appears again.

[1] http://www.mapilab.com/outlook/nntp/
[2] http://blog.aheil.de/MAPILabNNTPForOutlook.aspx

Live Writer [1] seems to be a quite nifty tool for offline blogging. The installations process is quite easy.

Also the handling of the tool is quite intuitive. And the support for adding images is awesome. Since I use shoadows for all my images I am quite pleased that Live Writer does support this feature which saves me some time while blogging.

[1] http://windowslivewriter.spaces.live.com/

There is a new blogging tool for offline blogging. Actually something I was waiting for a long time. Most of the tools I have tried until now usually did not support some essential funcitons I required.

"Windows Live Writer is a desktop application that makes it easier to compose compelling blog posts using Windows Live Spaces or your current blog service." [1]

So I will try soo its compatibility with dasBlog.

[1] http://windowslivewriter.spaces.live.com/

I was just looking for a new newsreader. I just msn searched and found the MAPILab NNTP for Oulook [1] plug-in. Now I am just trying the 30-day trial verison. Not to bad, yet. The NNTP is managed the same way as any email account.

[1] http://www.mapilab.com/outlook/nntp/

SVNService [1] by Magnus Norddahl works great if you want to run subversion [2] as a Win32 service. Just installing the service with svnservice.exe -install -d -r c:\repository. It seems to be confusing that the service is not started and set to manual, but the svn server is running, even after a reboot.

[1] http://dark.clansoft.dk/~mbn/svnservice/
[2] http://subversion.tigris.org/

There are some Microsoft Mac essentials [1] that must be on my Mac's HDD. Windows Media Player and IntelliPoint at least. I have also found but not tried yet an update for Virtual PC, which maybe can solve the previous installing issue [2].

I especially recommend IntelliPoint if you use any Microsoft Mouse. I became very frustrated by my Wireless Optical Blue Mouse on the Mac. It was slow and stucking; improving the speed within the Mac's System Preferences did not improve the handling cery well. However, the IntelliPoint software does support the devices very well, and by using the IntelliPoint pointer speed option instead of System Mouse Tracking the performance and reliability of the wireless mouse is improved dramatically. 

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It also has some additional information on the mouse, depending on the attached device. After replacing my Optical Wheel Mouse USB with the Wireless Optical Blue Mouse I got this additional tab showing the battery level.

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[1] http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/Browse.aspx?displaylang=en&categoryid=5
[2] http://blog.aheil.de/MyFirstMac.aspx

Maria brought the Consolas Font Pack for Visual Studio 2006 [1] to my attention. After installing, the Consolas font is set up as default font in Visual Studio 2005. At least on my Portégé M200 it is very readable.

[1] microsoft.com/downloads

My favorite media player, Media Player Classic (guliverkli) can be found at [1].

[1] http://sourceforge.net/projects/guliverkli 

Actually, you can never have enough backups, but the original reason for getting Acronis' TrueImage was to copy an image of my 60GB laptop HDD to a new 100GB HDD. This worked surprisingly well, connecting the new disk, using an external USB case, the tool reboots the system and copies a bootable image of the disk.

Beside this, the tool can perform backups while you work on your system. Very cool and helpfully if you backup to a server, which could take some time. In addition the tool provides a very great feature, which makes accessing files within your backup very comfortable. You can just plug an backup image as a virtual disk to your system and this way you can access the complete backup and access specific files you are looking for.

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Windows XP Downloads Overview at [1].

[1] http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/default.mspx

I am just sending some time re-installing my machine. So I decided to drop some lines about the tools I do install on my Toshiba Portégé M200.

Tablet PC

• Microsoft Experience Pack for Tablet PC
  If you have a Tablet PC, the Experience Pack is a must. Including the Tablet PC Theme.
• Microsoft Education Pack for Tablet PC
  Some more tools to get organized using a Tablet PC.
  or you can also just check out the
• Microsoft Enhancement Pack for Tablet PC
  Including the five most popular programs from the Microsoft Experience Pack and the Microsoft Education Pack.
• Windows Explorer Thumbnail View (Journal Files)
  View your journal files in thumbnail view.
• Tablet PC Reckognizer Pack
  Supports handwriting expecially if you use several different keyboard layouts and languages on your Tablet PC.

Maintaining

• DU Meter
  Provides an accurate account of the data which is flowing through your computer's network connection at any given moment.
• SyncToy v1.1 for Windows XP
  SyncToy v1.1 helps you copy, move, rename, and delete files between folders and computers quickly and easily.
• Tweak UI
  This PowerToy gives you access to system settings that are not exposed in the Windows XP default user interface.
• MSG iFilter Add-in to Windows Desktop Search
  

  Simply find all Microsoft Outlook MSG (.MSG) files and the contents within.
• Adobe PDF iFilter v6.0
  Adobe PDF IFilter is a free downloadable Dynamic Link Library (DLL) file that provides a bridge between a Microsoft indexing client and a library of Adobe PDF files.
• Windows Defender
  Unfortunately still beta2.

Developing

• NDoc
  NDoc is an extensible code documentation generation tool for .NET developers.
• FxCop 1.35
  FxCop is a code analysis tool that checks .NET managed code assemblies for conformance to the Microsoft .NET Framework Design Guidelines. It uses reflection, MSIL parsing, and callgraph analysis to inspect assemblies for more than 200 defects.
• Subversion
  The goal of the Subversion project is to build a version control system that is a compelling replacement for CVS in the open source community.
• TortoiseSVN
  TortoiseSVN is a Subversion client, implemented as a windows shell extension. The coolest Interface to (Sub)Version Control.

• RSS Bandit
  Just my favorite news aggregator.

Tools

• SmartFTP
  My preferred FTP client.
• WinZip
  Some basics...
• ieSpell
  To correct the thousands of spelling mistakes while I am blogging.
• Daemon Tools 4.0.3
  Runs ISO files and other disk images from a virtual drive.
• Open Command Window Here
  This PowerToy adds an "Open Command Window Here" context menu option on file system folders.
• Microsoft Time Zone Utility
  Microsoft Time Zone conveniently runs in the system tray and allows you to easily view the date and time in various locations around the world.
• Alt-Tab Replacement
  Seeing a preview of the application window you are switching to.
• CDex
  Creates WAV and MP3s from music CDs.
• ISOBuster
  Creates ISO images of CDs and DVDs.

Office

• Stampit and Stampit Updates
  It takes ages to find the update page for Stampit.

Media

• Image Resizer
  This PowerToy enables you to resize one or many image files with a right-click.
• SDP 2.0
  MMS streaming receiver for windows media streaming.
• Media Player Classic
  Lightweight media player with WMP lok and feel.
• Picasa
  Even if it's from Google, it's a great to get an overview of your local pictures and images.
• DivX Coded
  
  

Communication

• Skype
  callto://aheil.de/

I had same chats about Ajax, JavaScript development, and of course testing and debugging of JavaScript. Looks like with the Sun Java Studio Creator 2 [1] some of these task can be accomplished. As soon as I have some time left, I will check this.

[1] http://developers.sun.com/prodtech/javatools/jscreator/index.jsp

For all those developers who prefer Emacs there it is. Emacs shortcuts put of the box supported by the Visual Studio 2005.

"The following shortcut key combinations mimic commands available in Emacs and are used while editing code in the integrated development environment (IDE)."

Link: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms165528.aspx

Because I was assked again some minutes ago: Lutz Roeder's .NET Reflector [1] is one of MUST HAVE tools for .NET programers.

[1] http://www.aisto.com/roeder/dotnet/

Today I spent some minutes to enhance my desktop. I installed AveDesk 1.2 [1] and the World Clock v0.2.0 docklet [2]. Just rename the dockelt's zip-file to .aveinst and double click it. Also ensure, that SysStats [3] is installed before that. After spending some more time with setting up the clocks, I got only one black clock without any map in it. It took a while to find out, whre the problem was. The problem is already known [4] and depends on the regional settings of your windows. Using the german settings the system expects some floats using a format like this xxx.xxx.xxx,xx while the US layout the docklet was written for, uses xxx,xxx,xxx.xx. Unlike in the article before [4] the World.vba there does not work, because the french settings use numbers with a format like xxx xxx xxx,xx.

This additional function and the two changes in MoveMap() should be enough for the german settings:

Function stringToFloat(strMeters)
    if isNull(strMeters) then
        stringToFloat = 0
        exit function
    end if

    'US xxx,xxx.xx to DE xxx.xxx,xx
    strMeters = replace(strMeters, ".", "foobar")
    strMeters = replace(strMeters, ",", ".")
    strMeters = replace(strMeters, "foobar", ",")

    stringToFloat = strMeters
End Function

Function MoveMap()
    centerX = SysStatsModel.Width/2
    centerY = SysStatsModel.Height/2
    
    latitude = stringToFloat(SysStatsModel.Meters("Latitude"))
    longitude = stringToFloat(SysStatsModel.Meters("Longitude"))
' ...

You can download the modified World.vbs [5] (as it is, without any warranty, usage on your own risk). Just copy the file to the folder Docklets\SysStats\scripts\world within your AveDesk directory. If you try to add more then one instances of the world clock on your desktop, copy the World.ini file from the Docklets\SysStats\configs directory for each clock and rename it. Assign to each clock its own .ini file. Otherwise all the docklets will be the same after the next start of AveDesk.

After spending this afternoon to find out how it works, it looks pretty nice:

[1] http://www.dockex.com/?pageId=docks
[2] http://www.dockex.com/index.php?pageId=docklets&dkview=81
[3] http://www.dockex.com/index.php?pageId=docklets&dkview=38
[4] http://www.aqua-soft.org/board/showthread.php?t=25989&highlight=world+clock
[5] http://www.aheil.de/files/World.vbs

While e.g. German keyboards provide only the €-sign, the Office 2003 add-in International Character Toolbar provides an easy way to access different currency or language symbols. 

[1] microsoft.com/downloads

R [1] is an interactive, programmable and extendable tool for statistical computing and graphics.

[1] http://www.r-project.org/

Sequoia View is still a great software to visualize your harddisks usage and find big files or directories with many small files. The usage of Cushion Treemaps makes this special look and feel. At the homepage choose Tips & Trix to find some information how to enable right-clicking folders to start Sequoia View. Since harddisks became larger, the tool needs amlost 10 minutes to check my 60G system disk the first time. I remember the first time I used the tool on a 2G disk, it just needed a few seconds.

[1] http://www.win.tue.nl/sequoiaview/

Google Earth [1], is a nice application, using DirectX and Google Maps [2]. So I was looking for Microsoft Research in Cambridge [3], UK.

You can really waste a lot of time, scrolling around and looking all the nice places. Beside this I found the German headquarter of Microsoft Deutschland GmbH [4], too.

[1] http://earth.google.com/products.html
[2] http://maps.google.com/
[3] http://research.microsoft.com/aboutmsr/labs/cambridge/default.aspx
[4] http://www.microsoft.de/

I just found the link to this 80x15 button maker [1] on schrankmonster. And I really like its output:

[1] http://www.lucazappa.com/brilliantMaker/buttonImage.php

I was looking for a tool which is able to convert mov into avi. Looks like RADTools [1] can do this.

[1] http://www.radgametools.com/bnkdown.htm

Just read about NUnitForms [1] on wagnerblog. I have to check it.

[1] http://wagnerblog.com/index.php?p=346

Aus dem Film "Sneakers" aus dem Jahr 1992 mit Robert Redford kann ich mich noch an den Satz "no more secrets" errinern. In diesem Sinne steht dieser Eintrag unter dem Titel "no more errors".

Aufgrund einer Anfrage bin ich dazu gekommen, ein kleines Tool zu schreiben, welches eine bestehende  Datenbank mit zusätzlichen Einträgen füllt. Um sicherzustelen, dass dieses Tool keinen Unfog treibt, wird die komplette Entwicklung test-getrieben durchgeführt. Das hierfür verwendete Tool ist, wer hätte es auch anders erwartet NUnit. Um von Anfang an eine saubere Trennung wischen Tests und Programm zu erhalten wurden alle Tests in eine eigene Klasse respetive eine eigene File verfrachtet.

Bevor wir überhaupt mit der Entwicklung der GUI anfangen wird zunächst all die Funktionalität im System sichergestellt. Ein sehr primitiver Test: den Connection String für die Datenbank aus der.config-Datei zu laden:

[Test]
public void CanRetrieveConnectionString()
{
    Assert.IsNotNull(connectionString);
}

Dieser Test is einer der einfachsten, und einder der wichtigsten, denn klappt es hier nicht, klappt gar nichts. Un man sollte auf diese einfachen Tests wirklich nicht verzichten.

Natürlich müssen wir zum Testen auch Daten in die Datenbank pumpen, die wir später wieder entfernen müssen:

[TestFixtureSetUp]
public void FixtureSetUp()
{
    // create uploader
    uploader = new ManiacKeyUploader();
    connectionString = uploader.ConnectionString;

    // fill database with test data
       //...
   }
}

Natürlich wird dies alles wieder in der [TestFixtureTearDown] alles wieder aufgeräumt, schilesslich sollen am Ende ja keine Karteileichen rumliegen: Was bringt das ganze, fragt man sich jetzt?

Wie man schön sehen kann, ist einer der Test fehgeschlagen. Ganz wichtig: Es handelt sich hierbei um einen Test, der vor den letzten Änderungen fehlerfrei durchlief. D.h. man kann mit Bestimmtheit sagen, dass in den letzten 5 Zeilen Code-“nderungen der Fehler begraben liegt, der sich auf den bereits vorhandenen Code auswirkt! DIESER Fehler wäre unter "normalen" Entwicklungsbedingungen nie mehr aufgetaucht und vermutlich erst beim Produktivbetrieb aufgefallen... Welche Kosten man durch ein solches Vorgehen spart... der vermdeindliche Mehraufwand lohnt sich allemal. Wer jetzt noch immer nicht davon überzeugt ist: Das Verhältnis Produktivcode zu Testcode liegt im Moment bei 1:2 und durch das test-getriebene Vorgehen wird der ganze Code wesentlich kleiner, schöner und effektiver.

Link: www.nunit.org